Migration Manager tips for successful deployments

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Over the course of a few years and version releases (7.1,7.5 and 7.6), I have spoken to many people regarding their experiences using Migration Manager to move data from Development to Test to Production environments. Some customers have been very successful and some have struggled. I noticed some common things about the successful customers.

1. Customers that know their data generally run into less roadblocks. The point here is these customers regularly use tools such as the Integrity Checker to make sure their database is not loaded with errors. They avoid using backend scripts to enter data.

2. Customers regularly refresh Dev or Test environments with a copy of Production. This is an execellent starting point that can avoid errors right from the beginning.

3. They avoid creating massive packages to move everything at one time. Cumbersome packages are difficult to debug and review. Instead they create new Migration Groups to move targeted sets of data.

4. They read the Redbooks. Migration Manager is one of the few areas that was funded for not just one, but 2 Redbooks. One for version 7.1 (yes, it still applies even in 7.6) and one for version 7.5 (Also applies to 7.6 ). These documents are a MUST read if you want to understand how Migration Manager works. You will avoid many pitfalls by reading these. There are useful examples as well.

Here are some Migration Manager documents links, including the Redbooks:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21567445